Does this explain why evil exists?

Question

Agent Smith (from the Matrix):

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."

Answer 1

Not precisely. It does do a great job of explaining the human condition however.

First of all, as I have said hundreds of not thousands of times, 'evil' is a subjective term. What is evil to me is not the same as what you consider evil. Consider this: In the movie, the Matrix, Neo and the other 'free' humans saw the matrix, it's creator, the agents and the machines in the real world as evil and their enemies. Yet to the Machines, it was Neo and the other humans that had freed themselves from the Matrix that were evil and needed to be stopped. So, who was 'evil'? I mean after all, it was humanity that created the machines and it was humanity that turned on the machines and tried to wipe them out by blackening the sky, and it was humanity that practically killed all living things on the service of the world, so who is evil? Different people will have different opinions. Who is right?

That said, I define evil as: Intentional and unrepentant ignorance*, indolence**, gluttony+, bigotry++ and cowardice.#

Therefore, a utopian civilization where there is no strife to test yourself, no reason to keep your mind sharp, nothing to test your limits and your bravery, would almost certainly lead to evil in all humanity.

Without testing ourselves there is no success, without rivalry there can be no victory. Without conflict and struggle there is only stagnation and death. Think of it this way, if you watched television all day, baseball, football, UFC, skateboarding, etc... even if you had a great concept of what it takes to play the sport or do the activity, if you had never tried it yourself, if you never faced an opponent that that was capable of defeating you, how would you every truly be any good at what it? In the martial arts world, a fairly common saying is, "You can learn just as much from loosing a fight as you can from winning a fight, sometimes you can even learn more." This is true, not just of fighting, but of any activity.

So, a classically described 'utopia' would be a death sentence. Man needs challenges to exist.

I hope this helps.


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NOTES:
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* Ignorance: The condition of being uninformed or uneducated. lacking knowledge or information
** Indolence: Habitually lazy, procrastinating, or resistance to physical or mental labor.
+ Gluttony: (archaic definition) Thoughtless and unreasonable excess. (This is not limited to food and drink by could include any substance (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, etc...), sex, gambling, etc... even money! [seeking money for the sake of having money or seeking it to the exclusion of all other pursuits would be gluttonous.])
++ Bigotry: Irrational intolerance and/or disdain of others based on racial, ethnical and/or cultural differences.
#Cowardice: Lack of mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty to a reasonable level of commitment.

Answer 2

We exist to make the journey. The harder the journey the better.

Along the way you will meet those who do not care about the journey for them the destination is all that matters. They don't care how they get to the destination as long as they get there first. These people will get in the way of the true journeyers.

But the most interesting are those who cannot pass up the opportunity to take a side trip, no matter how much time it adds to the journey.

Answer 3

Greetings Friend,

Yes. Our egoic selves had to make evil, so that there would always be strife so it could feel alive. When we fight, it is easy to make a them and me. In doing that, we get a better sense of self, or of who we think we are. Purely speaking, good and evil does not exist, but in the illusion, the Matrix, it had to exist or we would see our oneness and live in peace.

sending love,

Answer 4

Dude - it's a film. And a fairly crap one at that.

The Wachowski bros may think this is a sophisticated exegesis, but the fact is that if you put humans into a tank and fed then utopia, they'd lap it up. And they'd complain like stuck pigs if you pulled them out of it.

CD

Answer 5

You're confusing the term and concept with the things you are using it to define. "Good" is a quality... it's a value judgement. So is "bad" and "evil." "Good," as a quality, only exists when you have something to compare it too... something that is judged as "not-good"... the quality of "not-good" is shared by "bad" and "evil" among other things. Now, "Good" can exist without evil, as long as "bad" also exists. If neither "bad," "evil" nor "not-good" existed, we would have no reason to judge anything as "good" because we wouldn't know what was not "good." Happiness would still exist (as would sadness) but we would not call it "good" because we wouldn't know what it was or wasn't. -Scarlet

Answer 6

Interesting quote to pull but I think it's right. I will answer by posing another question. How would we know what's truly good if we did not have evil to compare it against?

Answer 7

Yahweh is singularly disinterested in human suffering other than to inflict it. Pleasuring a rat is perversion, torturing a rat is research.

Answer 8

You are in the wrong forum.
Look for fantasy

Answer 9

No. It explains how conspiracy theories are born.

Answer 10

there is no such thing as evil